Brandon Gray at Box Office Mojo has posted a short preview of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. You can read his piece by clicking here.
Gray reports little, if anything, about VDT that the fanbase didn’t already know, but he does analyze the film’s box office potential. After calling Prince Caspian a “disappointment” Gray states VDT will “sink further than Prince Caspian…it would take an extraordinary final product and marketing effort for Voyage to tread water.” In his view, working against VDT are the 2.5 year gap between it and Caspian, as well as the December release. And of course, he does make a comparison to Eragon and The Golden Compass, which did not perform strongly with December openings.
Its a unique take. He’s probably right about the film delays, but most seem to agree that moving VDT to December was a good idea. We shall see…
I do think that moving VDT to December is a good idea. This summer is going to be a busy time at the box office, with a lot of action/adventure films coming out around the same time (Prince of Persia, Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, etc.) And the first Narnia movie seemed to do quite well when it came out in December…
Let’s hope he’s wrong as he can be. If Voyage stays close to the book, how can it fail? It’s an exciting story filled with wonder and fantasy. I’m telling all my friends who haven’t read the book how much Narnia fans are anticipating this movie. I tell them it’s the best one of the series. Let’s prove this guy wrong!
What a loser. Get a friend, loser.
Let’s avoid attacks, please. I’ve e-mailed Brandon Gray, and he was very gracious. He always has been, in fact. Not to mention that he’s been studying box office trends for years. While we disagreed about the potential box office of Dawn Treader, we both have very valid reasons for our beliefs.
don’t listen to Brandon Grey the movie has not even been out yet he can’t judge the movie when its not out yet i think it can be or should be the best in the movie series
does anyone agree with me leave comments
While I agree with two above statements completly, I have to say this title freaked me out a little bit. My computer was slow to load when clicking on this article, and upon reading the title, I strangely though it read ‘Preview of the Dawn Treader’. Go figure I’d freak out about nothing LOL!
I think if all possible. They have to stay close to the books, i could sense Disney was wondering around too much with the story during Prince Caspian. I know it’s a challenge to bring books to the big screen, But they have to remember how many people grew up with these books and love their stories.
I think The Golden Compass was a failure because the writer of that triligy is a known atheist who wrote those books as an antitheses to Christianity. I know that thousands of Evangelicals did not go to that movie because of the author.
Disney shouldn’t have dropped Narnia…but I have every reason to believe the Voyage will be wonderful and can’t wait for its release. Prince Caspian made less money than the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe partially because of the release date. People like movies that are released at Christmas time. I think it still was a fabulous movie, and understand from reading information given by C.S.Lewis’s stepson Douglas Gresham why they had to vary from the narrative to create a movie from the book. I hope Voyage will stay close to the book since it is the best in the series~
The man has a point; but the marketing of PC was a big reason why it flopped at the box office. I think plenty of people would have been very happy with the movie if A. Disney had done a better job with the publicity and marketing, and B. if the book fans, who were very biased in their opinions BEFORE the movie even released, had shut up about the movie and let people see it without boycotting it. Frankly, if Fox/Walden can publicize the film better, that’s only a half-success. It’s the book fans who need to wait to pass judgment on the film until after they see the movie, or at least, they need to stop convincing people that the movie is terrible. I wonder if Disney flubbed on the publicity for PC on purpose? I saw very little merchandise and advertising for PC and was very shocked/upset that there wasn’t much advertising for it.
I hope Mr. Gray is wrong, but he might be right. The Narnia books can stand on their own, but can they stand the fingers of a studio meddling with those books. Disney is good marketing pirates and other fluff but not very good marketing movies with some meat to them. Look what Disney did to Prince Caspian and Bridge To Tarabithia. As Ms. Mitchell pointed out The Golden Compass was boycotted but some religious groups, but I think it failed because at the last minute New Line chopped the last three chapters of the book out of the movie. One can see parts of the last three chapters in the trailers but not in the movie. The point that I am trying to make is that the studio messed with the book. This is the worry that I have with Narnia moves; is the studio going to mess to much with the books and thus destroy the movie series. I think that one of the reasons that Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings did well is that the studio did not mess with them much. (I know that New Line changed a few scenes in LOTR.) VDT is a very magical book. Can Walden/Fox keep the magic alive? Are they going to market it well? They need more than just us die-hard fans to keep it going.
Dude! this guy really appears not to like the movies very well. Prince Caspian was doing sooo much better than Eragon and The Golden Compass. I don’t like how he says PC was a dissapointment. So it was off the plot, doesn’t mean we need to say VDT will be worse! I know alot of people who say it was the best movie of the year!
I don’t think Prince Caspian was a total “disappointment” but I do think Voyage of the dawn treader will do better than PC!
I mostly agree with this report. Most of his points are hard to argue with. PC was a box office disappointment. LWW is the most well known in the series. Narnia is seven stand-alone stories, unlike HP and LotR. I do think that VDT will do better than PC because of its release date, but making VDT a big hit will be an uphill battle. Not saying it definitely won’t happen, just saying that it will be very difficult.
I think that comparing “The Golden Compass” to VDT is a mistake. Thousands of Christians actually prayed that that movie would not be a success, because they knew that the author wrote the books as an attack against Christianity. I truly think that God answered those prayers because it would be very bad for the other two books in the trilogy to be made.
Besides, look at the bright side. “The Return of the King” was released in December and made $1 billion! Let’s compare VDT to December movies that did wonderfully!
I think that the movies might turn out like a graph. LWW was way up high on the graph, PC was lower. Still, we only have points A and B. A linear graph would have point C lower down, but a lot of graphs turn out curved. (They also often turn out symmetrical. Does that mean the LB will do terrifically??) I think we have to wait to see where VDT ends up before passing judgment about which way this series is going.
Roughly one year later….
Dawn Treader did not perform as well as the previous Narnia movies. However Treader did outperform Golden Compass and Eragon. Domestically Treader just passed the $100 million milestone; Eragon broke $75 million and Golden Compass pulled a meager $70 million.